KR102017351B1 - Painting plant - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a painting plant, individual instruments required for different process steps of the painting plant, each of which is housed in a separable module, thus maintaining and servicing not only the installation of the painting plant. Greatly simplifies.

Description

Painting Plant {PAINTING PLANT}

The present invention relates to a facility for coating a substrate with at least one organic coating layer. The installation according to the invention makes it possible, in particular, to apply coatings by spraying.

In order to apply such a coating film to a substrate, many process steps are generally required.

In the first step, the substrate surface is typically cleaned. This step is achieved, for example, by air pressure and / or by means for ionizing the surface, or by irradiating the surface with a liquid medium such as water or an aqueous or alcohol or solvent-based solution or Or by dipping the substrate into an aqueous or alcoholic or solvent-based solution, either by irradiating the surface with a solid such as blasting or C02, or possibly under the influence of propagation such as ultrasonic waves or microwaves.

In the second step, the coating coating is deposited by, for example, spraying a coating dispersion. Thereafter, the already coated substrate is baked. This step can be achieved by heating by air circulation and / or by exposure to infrared radiation, for example at 50 ° C to 80 ° C. In this regard, the solvents normally present in the nose bath dispersion necessarily evaporate. In today's very widespread UV curable coatings, i.e. in coatings cured by ultraviolet light, curing occurs in one of the following steps of solvent evaporation.

Most coatings used are based on organic materials dispersed in a solvent. As the solvent, an aqueous solution, an organic solvent or an inorganic solvent may be considered. The coating may also be based on water. Curing can be achieved by heat or by radiation curing.

All of these steps can be accomplished in a single chamber with a substantially fixed substrate. However, in such multifunctional chambers, there is a problem that, in a batch operation of equipment used for cleaning and coating curing, there is a risk of being contaminated with the coating dispersion or being invaded by evaporated solvent.

For this reason, it is common today to carry out the steps in different places and in separate separate sections during inline operation. 1 shows a corresponding installation with substrates 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41 to be coated. In this case, the elongated chamber 1 is divided into a plurality of sections 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 separated by doors 3, 5, 7 and 9, in which said step is taken. The instrument necessary to perform is provided. There is an inlet 21 at the beginning of the chamber and an outlet 23 at the end of the chamber. The transfer device 25 transfers the substrates to be coated into the chamber and to various stations as well as out of the chamber. The transfer device 25 is generally operated continuously or intermittently, and the substrates 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41 all move simultaneously. If some substrates are processed without movement in one of the split sections 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, while other substrates continue to be transferred, the substrates remaining without movement are transferred from the transfer device 25 to the appropriate mechanism. By means of which the conveying device 25 is generally quite complex and expensive. This conveying device 25 constitutes an integral unit over the entire painting installation, which has the further disadvantage that the divided sections 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 are insufficiently separated from each other. The individual sections 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 have the disadvantage that the entire system must be made much larger.

Generally, a fresh air supply is provided at the top of each section 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and at the bottom an extraction that removes air and gas from the chamber area and supplies them to a cleaning system (not shown). An apparatus is provided. By separating the sections for different process steps according to the prior art, it is practically possible to ensure that different processes do not adversely affect each other. However, such coating equipment has a disadvantage that it is difficult to transfer due to its size. It is therefore also a great effort to assemble and install this system, which is why these systems are not fully manufactured by the equipment manufacturer, and the completion of all system functions and related process steps, and final fine-tuning It is particularly noteworthy that it has the disadvantage that it can only be done on the site.

As shown in Fig. 3, a further embodiment of the coating installation 301 which attempts to overcome some of the above mentioned disadvantages according to the prior art is described as follows:

Intrinsically inseparable parts cleaning, painting and hardening operations are not arranged inline but are directly adjacent to the feeder 303, eg, split process chambers 305, 307, 309, 311 with a work station. ) To this end, suitable processing devices 313, 315, 317, 319 are required, which remove the substrate and the carrier loaded with the substrate from the transfer device 303 and place them in each work station in each divided work chamber. . The conveying device 303 is intermittently operated in this case, ie the conveying of the substrate and the carrier is not continuous.

In this case, the individual process chambers 305, 307, 309 and 311 can be very well separated from each other, but serious disadvantages remain, such as the size of the entire coating plant or the transfer device continuously forming a non-separable unit. . This consists of an additional burden on the treatment units, an additional burden on the increased plant size for the placement of such treatment units, and in particular a complete conveyer with special space quality in terms of dust and air purity. There are additional disadvantages such as the need to build large room 321 and the like. The treatment of the air is very expensive in terms of increased maintenance costs, mainly energy and filter technology, as well as investment costs for the purchase of equipment.

Thus, there is a need for a coating installation that overcomes the above mentioned disadvantages of the prior art. The present invention aims to provide a coating installation in which the above disadvantages are overcome.

This object is achieved by a modular coating installation according to claim 1 of the present invention. In contrast to the elongated individual process chambers and the arrangement of parallel process chambers known in the art, the chamber according to the invention is divided into individual completely separate work modules, depending on the number of process steps. Each of these modules preferably includes a fresh air supply at the top, an air and gas extractor at the bottom, and a transport at the bottom. Each of these modules includes an entrance door as well as an exit door. In the context of the present description, the term “door” means an opening mechanism or any type of shutter for the opening through which the substrate can be conveyed in or out of each module.

The individual modules are arranged in relation to each other in such a way that the outlet door of one module is connected with the inlet door of a subsequent module. Connection here means that the carrier loaded with the substrate can be transferred from the exit door of one module to the entrance door of the subsequent module. Preferably, the exit door of one module is disposed immediately near the entrance door of the subsequent module, the exit door and the entrance door forming one unit with a common drive mechanism. Only the entrance door of the first module of the system and the exit door of the last module of the system are isolated, ie not associated with the doors of other modules. In the present invention, it is possible to omit the inlet and / or outlet doors in the individual modules if each process step allows and / or air flow conditions are chosen, such that cross contamination, individual contamination or contamination between individual modules is possible. The spread of bacteria can be avoided.

The modules are each individually controlled by a central controller. Preferably, each module receives its own control component, and once all system components to be controlled are connected, then the control components arranged in a distributed manner are connected to the central controller via a simple cable or via wireless communication. Or managed in a master-slave configuration.

The design of the present invention has the important advantage that only the components belonging to each module are electrically connected to each other, thus requiring much less cable material and installation costs, and yet another advantage is that no provision of a central control cabinet is required.

Based on the design of the coating facility with completely independent modules, transfer from one module to the final destination with very little effort is possible. This also greatly simplifies assembly, installation and commissioning. The present invention can be set up at the customer's site in the shortest time since the coating system is assembled and tested at the manufacturer's site, thereby reducing costs and time, and improving work reliability.

The invention is illustrated by way of example in conjunction with the following figures.
1 shows a coating installation constructed in an in-line design according to the prior art.
2 shows a coating installation of the present invention constructed in a modular design.
3 shows a coating installation constructed of a modular design with discontinuous operation.

Coating equipment according to the prior art (Figs. 1 and 3) has already been described above. 2 shows a coating installation 201 constructed in a modular design according to the invention. 2 shows an inlet cleaning module 203 with ionizing radiation 211, a coating module 205 with a spray nozzle of a robot arm 213, and an IR emitter 215. The coating material curing module 209 by the solvent removal module 207 (baking) and the UV lamp 217 through heating is shown. Each of these modules includes its own controllers 221, 223, 225, and 227, respectively, which are finally controlled by the central controller 229. The module controllers can control not only the transfer devices 231, 233, 235, 237, but also the inlet doors 241, 243, 245, 247 and the exit doors 251, 253, 255, 257. If the processing steps of two adjacent modules do not adversely affect each other, the corresponding doors can be omitted. If one module follows another module, it is absolutely not necessary to implement both the exit doors of one module as well as the entrance doors of the other module. In addition, the module controllers also have functional units such as spray nozzles and robot arms 213, IR emitters 215, UV lamps 217 and dischargers 261, 263, 265 and 267 provided for each module. To control. Thus, each module is basically an individually controllable module, the interaction of which modules being controlled by the central controller 229. Substrates to be coated are not indicated by reference numerals as shown in FIG. The board placed between the 207 and 209 modules shows how the transfer is implemented from one module to the next: the substrate is slid out of the 207 module by the driving mechanism of the transfer means 235. At the same time, it extends over the transfer means 237 of the 209 module. This naturally opens from 255 to 247 doors.

For the insertion into the first module, the conveying device shown can also be used and the same conveying device is also possible for discharge out of the coating installation. Specifically, the entire system, including the insertion and discharge mechanisms, is designed in one cycle process so that the mounting of the substrate to be coated and the removal of the coated substrate can be carried out in one place by robots and / or automatic devices, if possible. have. This pure transfer section does not need to be implemented in a cleanroom environment.

The coating equipment is very simple to assemble and dismantle based on the modular design. If one module of the coating system fails, it can be easily replaced with another equivalent module without dismantling the entire coating system. In addition, additional modules such as, for example, PVD coatings and additional processing steps can be added to easily complete the coating installation. On the other hand, the corresponding process by the customer is not required, and the modules can be omitted. Thus, manufacturers of coating equipment have the option of designing on the basis of standardized modules for the coating equipment, the whole concept of customer satisfaction.

Claims (7)

a) means for cleaning the substrate to be coated,
b) means for coating the substrate,
c) a coating installation comprising at least a curing treatment means of a coated substrate,
The coating equipment is designed in a modular structure, and each processing means of a) to c) each includes its own module, and each module includes its own transport device so that the modules can cooperate. When continuous in-line conveying in the direction of travel through the modules is implemented, each of the modules comprising a housing having an inlet door and an outlet door,
Each module is configured such that the outlet door of one module is in each case the subsequent module, with only the entrance door of the first module of the coating installation and the exit door of the final module of the coating installation not connected to the door of the other module. Arranged relative to each other in a manner that is connected to the entrance door,
The conveying devices of the modules are arranged such that the substrate is conveyed from the conveying device of one module onto the conveying device of the subsequent module, and each substrate is slid out from one module due to the driving mechanism of the conveying device. Displaced on the conveying device of the subsequent module,
An automatic device for loading and unloading coating equipment is provided, and a first transport device for transporting the substrate from the automatic device to the entrance door of the first module is provided, and the substrate is transferred from the exit door of the final module to the automatic device. A second transfer device for providing is provided,
The outlet door of the at least one module and the inlet door of the subsequent module form a unit with a common drive mechanism, wherein one of the modules is a module for physical vapor deposition coating
Coating equipment.
The method of claim 1,
Coating equipment, characterized in that doors are provided in at least one of the modules to seal the module interior space against the module's external environment.
delete The method according to claim 1 or 2,
Each module includes one control unit and an electrical device associated with the control unit, wherein the exhaust system and the processing means and the conveying device of the module can be controlled by the control unit,
Coating equipment, characterized in that a central controller is provided for adjusting the control units of the modules.
The method according to claim 1 or 2,
The conveying devices are designed as a conveyor belt, coating equipment characterized in that the conveying of the substrates is implemented by pushing the substrates over the edge of the conveying device. delete delete

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